User blog:Oriana Anima/The Valkar Initiative and Centauri Imperium
WIP Basic Introduction The incredible power of the Valkar Initiative necessitates some basic information regarding notation and terminology. This can be found here. *'Basic Notation:' The notation used is E Notation. *'Kardashev Scale:' The Kardashev Scale is a way to measure civilizations based on power usage. This is used as such: **'Method:' The method used is Carl Sagan's method, or through this formula: K = (log10(P)-6)/10 where P is Power in Watts and K is the Kardashev Rating. ***'Useful Notes:' Type 1 is approximately a single planet, or 10^16 W. Type 2 is approximately a star, or 10^26 watts. Type 3 is approximately a galaxy, or 10^36 watts. **'Additional Note:' The Kardashev Scale only measures power - however, it can be used to measure population if you provide power usage per capita. In the case of the Centauri Imperium, the power usage is 1 megawatt (1E6 W) per biological capita. As a result, it is easy to convert population to a Kardashev Rating - simply divide the exponent by 10. 10,000,000,000 individuals, or 10^10, would be 10/10 = Kardashev 1, and so on. Basic Description The Valkar Initiative is an incomprehensibly vast swarm of networked artificial intelligence - an emergent "swarm AI" of unimaginable power. The immense data storage, information capacity, power generation, industrial output and sheer population - both biological and technological - within the Valkar Initiative and its host civilization, the Centauri Imperium - is incomprehensibly vast. Swarms of space stations and satellites engulf fully half the stars in the Milky Way Galaxy. Two hundred solar masses of matter are processed every year - comparable to the largest known stars. Colossal amounts of data are transmitted through micro-wormholes to maintain the immense, galaxy-spanning network. The power generation of the combined systems is so vast that the half of the galaxy it lies within glows over five hundred times brighter than the other. The population is so large that planetary habitation is all but impossible except for the overwhelmingly small minority, even with vast city-worlds. Instead, they live on vast swarms of orbital habitats - with a population density comparable to a large town, with a habitat every 2,500 kilometers in a sphere the radius of Neptune's orbit. There are countless hyperspecialized areas of the Valkar Initiative's structure - entire systems dedicated to manufacturing, mass extraction, or information storage. The unimaginably advanced technology involved operates almost at the physical limits of the universe - information storage is so vast that it must be stored in quantum states on 'cold' neutron stars, for instance. Their most basic building materials are intelligent, capable of adapting to nearly any purpose and optimized for computation as well. Anything made of matter is recycled with immensely-powerful fusion torches, also serving as additional fuel. The most terrifying aspect of the Valkar Initiative is not its unimaginable power, nor its unfathomable mind - it is possible, save for perhaps some of its more esoteric technologies, to construct within our galaxy within the timespan of 250,000 years. Technology advances - robotics can allow for super-automation and self-replication, computing will continue to develop, and if nuclear fusion is realized it will provide nearly limitless free energy. The world of the Centauri Imperium - the Valkar Initiative and its host - is vastly different from our own, a shadow of what the future may be like. It is not perfect, it is not magic nor is it unified - it is inhabited by people, with wants and needs and issues of their own - issues vastly different from ours. We may very well consider the majority of it utopian - but they certainly do not. Composition and Physical Description The Valkar Initiative is built out of an incredibly advanced material known as Celestene, a programmable regenerative adaptive supertensile hyperadvanced organic intelligent computronium nanometamaterial. It operates at the physical limits of both chemistry and physics. It is ultralight and supertensile - far stronger than graphene while having comparable weight. It is programmable computronium - hyper-optimized for computing purposes, and can reconfigure itself on demand. It is self-repairing, and has properties not found in nature via nano-scale structures in its construction. No two pieces of celestene are truly identical unless necessary, as it will configure itself into an optimal form for its current use. Much of the Valkar Initiative exists in the form of vast swarms of habitats for the immense biological population. A typical habitat is roughly two kilometers across, rotating for artificial gravity and housing approximately 10,000 people on 10 square kilometers of land. These habitats are densely packed, with only 2,500 kilometers between them on average. Each habitat is powered by a fusion reactor, that uses fuel extracted from the star it orbits. The entire solar output of the star is used for starlifting, to extract both fuel and raw material for construction - to the Valkar Initiative, fuel and raw material are the same. Several star systems are mined with Solar Spikes - colossal celestene constructs designed for extremely rapid extraction of matter from stars. These structures are so massive and complex that they require multiple Jupiter Brains - planet-sized supercomputers - to simply manage, let alone operate. This matter can be used on-site, but is usually transported via a mass-stream lightyears across to a nearby star system with a Stellar Forge, an immense solar-system sized factory. The typical end-product is more habitats for expansion purposes. Any well-developed system within the Valkar Initiative is capable of turning the entire power output of its star into a weapon, focusing it in its entirety on any planet in the galaxy or beyond. This could take the form of a single laser or particle beam, but it will typically be used to power relativistic kill vehicles - unmanned starships accelerated to near the speed of light for a single, massive impact. VIstellarforge.png|A Stellar Forge - an immense structure hyperspecialized for manufacturing. VIswarm.jpg|A typical Dyson Swarm construction for habitation purposes. VIsolarspike.jpg|A Solar Spike - a colossal star-lifting device to extract unimaginably vast quantities of raw materials from stars. VIhypernode.jpg|An example of a Matrioshka Hypernode - a star disassembled into smaller suns for efficiency, extra power, and lifetime. VIdysonbeam.jpg|Any system that is part of the Valkar Initiative is capable of planetary destruction. Category:Blog posts